The glow burned my eyes but I couldn’t take my gaze from its mesmerizing emanation. It stood like a sentinel, guarding my emotion. Although it was a single flame, that lone candle represented the one person I wished was here with me.
Category Archives: musings
Felonious felines
5 CommentsIf the pungent stench hadn’t first assaulted my senses, the tiny footprints in the remnants of snow on my deck would have led me to believe that a small feline intruder had been in my entrance way and left its fluidic calling card.
I am no stranger to the repugnant smell of cat pee. I have suffered before and was doing it again as the essence of the foul beast breached the sanctity of my nasal passages and made its way into my throat. Before my morning vision had even the slightest chance of coming into focus the very solemnity of my home, as well as my olfactory nerves, had been violated by my neighbor’s cat.
Now, before you judge me on the basis of these words, I do not dislike cats. I appreciate their ability to be detached yet affectionate. I admire their commitment to their sense of self. And I applaud their propensity to be indifferent and intrigued at the same time.
That being said, I do take offence to a four-legged creature of the non-canine variety befouling a room in which it has no business being present. Cats do not, and will not, live in my home. Allergic reactions aside, I have a colored past with these anciently domesticated beings and, in putting my differences aside, I have come to the realization that we make better strangers than friends.
I have repeatedly admonished my dog for wanting to run into the neighbor’s yard when she sees this territorial interloper, but I have since rethought my initial position. My dog is merely protecting the rightful place that is her shelter. She is simply defending her home against enemies, feral or domestic. And she is attempting to preserve my nose from the offensive fragrance of future feline fearlessness.
Through the looking glass
13 CommentsI generally have a good handle on my emotions but circumstances of late have made that handle much more difficult to grasp. I feel like I have boarded a train that has sped into a murky tunnel and I have no idea what awaits me on the other side. Perhaps that is the most difficult part for me since I usually have a well thought out plan and I feel, now, like I am slightly clueless.
Alice had the benefit of being able to see beyond the glass into the world she was able to observe. Her situation gave her the advantage of knowing what awaited her on the other side and any foresight into a situation is welcomed knowledge.
It is difficult, having moved forward into that mirror, feeling gravity pulling me in the rest of the way and, blindly assuming that the other side will be as beautiful as it is in my dreams.
I can only continue through that looking glass and hope that my intuition and my gut are leading me the right way and that the fate I am wishing for awaits me on the other side.
”Alice through the Looking Glass” Sculpture located in Guildford’s Castle Grounds.
It’s not about the distance
10 Comments
You see my shoes,
and you think they might fit you.
You may even wrongly assume
that they had very little wear,
and you could walk much further than a mile.
But my treads are worn,
reduced to a thin layer of rubber,
marred by a life of experience.
Perhaps my shoes are similar to yours,
maybe even close to the same size,
but my shoes will not fit you,
as I expect yours would not feel comfortable on my feet.
This road has been mine to follow,
as your trail was carved out for you.
Conceivably, our winding paths have crossed on purpose,
but your journey is yours, as mine belongs to me.
And as much as you think my shoes will fit,
your feet were meant for your shoes
just as mine were meant for me.
I hope one day we will share a walk,
and our shoes will take many steps together.
And when that day comes,
I hope we walk much further than a mile.
Has anyone seen my patience? I seem to have lost it.
12 CommentsI used to be a very patient person. I was never fidgety while waiting in a line. I knew my turn would come eventually and I was okay with that.
As the years have passed, I now understand where my mother was coming from when she used to say “my patience is wearing thin”. Perhaps it is somehow a right of passage that we are less apt to wait today than we may have been a couple of decades ago. My patience these days resembles something like the onion-skin paper we used to trace pictures when we were in high school.
There are still moments when I am okay to wait, moments that are fleeting and that I know will pass relatively quickly. But I am currently caught in a circumstance where I feel completely helpless and have no choice but to sit back and wait for information to come to me. I feel horribly powerless and that is not a feeling I am accustomed to experiencing.
It’s hard to let go. It’s difficult to convince myself that things are going well at the other end when my imagination continues to conjure hundreds of possible scenarios. And my lack of patience only fuels the fire of anxiety as I am forced to bide my time until I get some news.
Until then, I shall consume myself with projects to try to keep myself busy enough so I can quell the even more impatient creative writers in my head. My own restlessness is hard enough to deal with….they will make this waiting period intolerable.
Wait for the feathers
12 Comments“Some days you’re the pigeon, some days you’re the statue.” ~ J. Andrew Taylor
Many of our days are inherently better than others. On those precious days we are the pigeon. We are free to fly, the wind lifts us and lets us soar and we feel like nothing can bring us down. We are above all of the little problems that life presents. We gain strength and power as we fly. We are able to stop when we want to and simply observe life at its best from a lofty perch, but we are also able to spread our wings and rise even higher on the warm currents of life.
Some days, however, that magical wind seems non-existent and our wings seem to fail. On those days, we are the statue. We are a solid mass under the weight of our own problems. We feel like we are stuck and there is no room to move. We feel stagnant and are rooted in our place, only able to watch life pass us by and not feel like we can participate. We are heavy with worry and cemented by fear, feeling like the world is doing nothing but looking at us and simply passing us by.
On the days we are the pigeon we have to remember to empathize with the statue. And on the days we are the statue we have to revel in the thought of what it is like to be the pigeon. To truly embrace all of life, we have to be willing to see it from the perspective of the bird and the bust. We have to understand that life is not always going to let us soar but we are never going to be stuck in one place for long if we break free of the mold we created for ourselves.
Life will ground us. It will root us in our place until it sees fit to allow us the capacity to fly once again. And in those moments that we feel fixed in a certain spot in our lives, we just need to wait for those feathers to grow large enough to carry us into our next chapter.
Perched precariously on the fence
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This is a lofty spot,
this place where I find myself.
I am currently balanced for fear of falling,
but this is a spot I find hauntingly familiar.
There is no right or wrong,
only what is best for me.
And whatever side I choose,
wherever I decide to plant my feet,
that is the direction I was meant to follow.
I can only believe in my truth,
that I cannot make any progress in my life
without making the decision to pick a side.
And once that decision is made,
that fence will no longer seem like an obstacle,
but merely an arrow.
When the sun shines on June
8 CommentsI have written many posts about my mom since she passed a little over two years ago. Some of those stories have been light-hearted and as joyful as she was and some have been wrapped tightly in the veil of loss.
During the past two years, my mother has made it extremely clear that she has been doing her best to keep in touch. While others may dismiss my belief in her presence, I know in my heart it is not fantasy. It is not simply an extension of my overactive imagination. It is not some arc angel named Jingobar trying to earn his wings. It is my mother – I knew her well enough to know how she operates.
If I ever had any doubt, even one moment’s hesitation that she was working her magic from another realm, she made it perfectly clear last Wednesday night. Without going into intricate detail, a great deal of my past culminated into a very emotional evening and, where I felt I had failed in the past, I encountered an overwhelming rush of emotion by feeling like I had finally made a difference.
After sharing a very touching conversation with a dear friend and wiping the remaining tears from my face, I walked back in to my living room. The early evening sun was still streaming through my window as I sat down on my couch. To my left, my grandfather’s writing desk was cast in half-shadow and half-sun. When I took a moment to absorb the tableau in front of me, the tears returned.
![IMG_2730[1]](https://polysyllabicprofundities.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/img_27301.jpg)
The candle on my desk, the one with my mother’s picture, was one of the few things bathed in the sunlight and that light, perhaps my mother’s light, projected a halo onto the wall behind it. In the two years that her candle has sat innocently atop my desk, this anomaly has never occurred. A brief twenty seconds later the image, and the sunlight, were gone.
My mom, June as we came to call after this story (click on the link), sent her message in her way and I got that message loud and clear. There will never be a doubt that she is always with me when the sun shines on June.
Make a wish
11 Comments
The pyramid that represents my desires is simple. Each wish is placed with careful consideration. Each moment of hope is used as mortar in the cracks. And at the pinnacle of that prism is the cherished knowledge that I dared to dream.
The good, the bad and the truth
7 CommentsHow quickly we lose our tenuous grasp on the things that used to seem so simple. How fleetly we relinquish our grip. How easily we let go of the reins only to watch those reins get wrapped up in the wheels of the coach we struggle to maintain control of as we steer ourselves into our future.
In those rare moments in our lives, in the moments when we think we can marginally and genuinely separate the good from the bad, the truth will always do its best to expedite that process. We are fools to think that we can fool ourselves. And although good and bad are formidable opponents, the truth will always come out the victor.
Knowing our truth may sometimes feel like nothing more than a burden. We may carry it with us, hidden under a shroud of secrecy, hoping that it remains hidden. But eventually that truth becomes transparent, if not to others at least, to ourselves. And in that moment, in that split second when we realize we can no longer pull the wool over our own eyes, the pressure of that burden no longer holds any weight.
Suddenly the reins are back in our hands. That feeling of losing control is replaced by a new calm and the knowledge that everything that seemed to be bad can be good again. The truth did, indeed, give us a sense of freedom and the moment we began believing in that truth, our change was inevitable.
Dealing with the good and the bad in ourselves is human nature. That concept evolved long before we began our journey through this lifetime. But being able to recognize the truth, to embrace the strength and the weakness that brought us to our truth, is the genuine definition of our character.
True strength is not measured by physical endurance alone. True strength does sweat, it does bleed. But it also cries, accepts, forgives and heals. True strength inspires us to be better and, somewhere along that rugged path, our truth can inspire others as well. #mjs
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